


the edge of the forest, the edge of the desert

by howlikeagod



Series: domestic juno/peter [2]
Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: #dressbadly2017, Domesticity, Juno's embarrassing thing for Peter's teeth, M/M, Tumblr Prompt, but it's my fanfiction and i'll cry if i want to, poor fashion choices, really more domesticity than these two should be capable of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-28
Updated: 2017-05-28
Packaged: 2018-11-05 21:33:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11022015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/howlikeagod/pseuds/howlikeagod
Summary: Last night, blown in on a gust of solar wind and shaking red dust from the sleeves of a sleek coat, Peter came home.Wherein Nureyev has unique taste in clothes, Juno loves him anyway, and they both figure out what it means to make a home.





	the edge of the forest, the edge of the desert

**Author's Note:**

> This one was inspired by a prompt from ingridlake on tumblr. 
> 
> Title from "Habitation" by Margaret Atwood.

Last night, blown in on a gust of solar wind and shaking red dust from the sleeves of a sleek coat, Peter came home.

He’s sleeping off the jetlag in Juno’s bed—in _their_ bed, Juno supposes. Just having the thought makes his brain trip and skid like a kid on new rollerskates. He’s not used to applying a possessive like that, jointly, the assumption of mutual and continued ownership.

It’s been a long time since he’s had the expectation of sharing—a bed, a kitchen, a cup full of pens. A life.

He pauses what he’s doing to take a breath, slow and deep. The first time Peter came here, it was with a different name and a different tension between them. A lot has changed, but some things are still the same—same man, of course, and wearing the same cologne. A cologne with a scent that lingers.

Before last night, Juno hadn’t been sure if the smell was still around—buried in pillowcases and hiding in bookshelves and the chair by the window—or if he had worn a path through the memory of it so thoroughly it was all in his head.

No matter which was true, no matter how much Juno Steel may or may not be willing to delude himself for a moment to share with Peter Nureyev, he doesn’t have to anymore. Peter came home.

Peter came home, and that reminder of him fills up the apartment—on pillows and couch cushions and the air in Juno’s lungs.

Like he heard Juno’s thoughts, like some kind of invocation, Juno feels long arms wrap around his shoulders and a sharp chin perch on top of his head.

“Good morning,” Peter says around a yawn.

“It’s two in the afternoon,” Juno replies. He leans back, a little, into the solid warmth of Peter’s chest.

Peter hums, as if the clock on Juno’s wall is a matter of debate.

“I’m not interrupting anything important, am I?” He nuzzles into Juno’s hair, not too worried about what he’s interrupting.

“Nah.” Juno sets down his pen and reaches up to put a hand over Peter’s, resting just inside the open top buttons of Juno’s shirt. “Just some billing stuff. Rita came down with a case of Centauri flu and I don’t want to swamp her with paperwork when she gets back.”

“That’s very considerate, detective,” Peter teases. Juno lets out a _humph._

“Commercial breaks are only so long,” he says, “and her time is my time.”

“Mhm.” Peter slips around him with a fluid motion that wouldn’t be possible if he weren’t so damn _tall_ and kisses Juno full on the mouth.

“Oh, thank God,” Juno mumbles against his lips. “You brushed your teeth.”

Peter pulls back just a bit, just enough that his nose bumps Juno’s, and laughs. 

His pair of eyes meets Juno’s one in a long moment, suspended in the red-orange afternoon light. The whole planet tilts—or at least, Juno feels it, gravity working backwards to send him careening into the darkness of space.

He dives back into the kiss a moment later, and with gusto. 

Peter’s tongue runs along the back of Juno’s teeth, over his bottom lip, across the ridge of his hard palate. Juno feels dizzy and slow trying to keep up, so he gives as good as he gets another way; namely, grabbing Peter by the hair and dragging him closer so fast their teeth almost knock together.

Juno isn’t sure exactly when he stood up, but he’s braced against his desk when they break apart again.

Peter nips gently at Juno’s jaw—teeth barely there but still enough to punch an embarrassing little _ah_ out of him.

“I have something to show you,” Peter says, leaving one more kiss on Juno’s neck before he stands up straight.

Juno raises an eyebrow.

“Something I’m going to see reported stolen on the news tonight?” Juno hopes Peter will have the good grace not to comment on how breathless he sounds. 

Peter puts a hand over his heart in mock affront.

“You wound me, Juno.” A smile is threatening to crack near the edge of his mouth. “I do actually buy things sometimes, you know.”

“Gotta spend those creds from your fence somehow,” Juno says, dry.

“Exactly.” Peter grins fully—all sharp teeth and sharper eyes. 

Juno’s heart quivers and quakes at the sight, the knowledge that he’s real and _here_ and finally close enough to touch. He pushes that feeling aside in lieu of a sarcastic eyeroll.

“So what is it? More art for my collection?” His eye briefly flicks to the wall covered in some of Mars’ most enjoyably atrocious paintings—lately, expanded into the _galaxy’s_ most atrocious and (hopefully) legally-acquired paintings. “Another trafficked plant I’ll forget to take care of? A new hat?”

“Tsk tsk, detective,” Peter says. “You can’t go around assuming every gift is for you. Sometimes a man has to treat himself as well as his lady friend.”

“So you did get me something!” Juno smiles up at him, triumphant.

“Yes, yes, fine,” Peter huffs, “but can I show you _this_ first?”

“I guess I’ll allow it.” Juno crosses his arms. “So?”

“So.” Peter is wearing a silk dressing gown he always seems to have within arm’s reach in the mornings, though Juno can never find where he stored it. Peter grabs the edges where it’s folded closed and flings it open with all the drama and flair of a magician revealing the empty box where the half-dozen fluttering wings and forked tail of a dove had been moments before.

Juno had assumed he was wearing boxers or pajamas underneath, but what actually unveils itself as Peter’s dressing gown falls to the floor is—

Well, for starters, it’s ugly as all fuck.

Juno can maybe see the appeal, if he tilts his head. And squints his eye. And imagines the thing looks absolutely nothing like that. It’s garish in a way that doesn’t even seem self-indulgent, just haphazard. 

It must have a hell of a lot of pockets, if Nureyev is this excited to wear it.

“Well?” Peter asks. Juno realizes he’s been staring, and the flagging excitement in Peter’s voice tells him he hasn’t been too subtle about what he thinks of this— whatever it is.

“I, uh.” He doesn’t want to be too harsh, not when it’s Peter’s first day back and all, so Juno clears his throat and settles for something technically _very_ true. “I’d rather see you out of it.”

Peter’s face softens and sharpens all at once. 

“Why, Juno,” he purrs. “I was hoping you’d see your way to welcoming me home properly.”

“Sure you’re not still too jetlagged?” Juno drifts closer even as he says it. “You had a long trip, understandable if you aren’t up for—”

Peter cuts him off with long fingers wound tight in his hair and a bite to the lower lip.

“Oh, I’m up for it, Juno,” Peter assures him. He runs his teeth along the sensitive skin just below Juno’s earlobe.

Juno shivers and, without another word, grabs him by the front of his unholy offspring of a jumpsuit and a sundress and pulls him into the bedroom.

The second they hit the mattress together, Juno is tackling the essential task of getting Peter naked. It takes him a minute to even find the zipper on the damn thing; meanwhile, Peter has Juno’s shirt unbuttoned and hanging off his elbows.

His fingers dance over Juno’s bare chest, which he follows with his mouth. Juno gasps when Peter’s hands—quick and clever and always in more places than they should possibly be—grope at his ass and get his pants undone.

Juno is still locked in combat with Peter’s outfit.

“Would you like some help with that, darling?” Peter raises his head from the mark he’s been sucking into Juno’s hip. Juno collapses, defeated, and nods.

With a victorious grin, Peter reaches behind himself. Two flicks of the wrist are all Juno can see from where he’s laying, and then the whole thing falls off.

It’s a relief in more than one way.

Instead of that eyesore—and if Juno had decided to be cruel and tease Peter, this would be the perfect time for a crack about how it’s even worse for him, only having the one—there’s the warm expanse of Peter’s skin.

He reaches out at the same time Peter reaches back. Juno’s hands, dark and scarred as a matter of contrast if nothing else, skim up Peter’s sides and settle between the wings of his shoulderblades. Peter leans over him, a hand in Juno’s hair and the other slipping inside his boxers.

Juno gasps and pushes his hips harder into Peter’s palm. There isn’t much room for friction with his pants still on, but Peter seems happy where he is: gripping his fingers tight in Juno’s curls, pressing him down into the mattress, making him squirm.

“You’re so beautiful,” Peter murmurs into Juno’s collarbone, lips and tongue tracing the ridge of his clavicle.

“Yeah, yeah, you’re an angel sent from heaven,” Juno grouses, “please take my pants off.”

Peter chuckles. 

“Patience is a virtue, detective,” he says, but he’s already sliding down to hook his thumbs into Juno’s waistband.

“Turns out I skipped the day they handed those out.” Juno groans as he’s finally free, hard and aching and Peter’s mouth is _right there._

He doesn’t do the obvious, though. Instead, Peter gives Juno his teeth again, quick and sharp to the soft skin of his inner thigh.

Juno moans. His hands are twisted in the sheet—it occurs to him he should probably change it after they’re done here. He tries to remember the last time he changed his sheets at all, which isn’t a train of thought he wants to follow. 

Especially not now, when Peter’s finally touching him.

There are long, clever fingers wrapped around him and a gentle hand at the back of his head, guiding their lips together. Peter’s body covers his own, straddling his thigh and grinding against his hip and whispering his name, almost reverent, _“oh, Juno”_ like a secret too important to share.

It’s—well. It’s a lot.

Juno is lost in it, for a while, the warmth and tenderness—symptoms of the thing he’s getting better at naming. 

He clutches at Peter, grabs his ass with both hands and pulls him down harder. Peter’s cock is a hot weight against him; Juno moans loud enough at a particularly sudden thrust that he’s sure his neighbors can hear. 

Peter shuts him up with his tongue in Juno’s mouth and gentle fingers circling his throat. Not to choke him—Juno knows from experience Peter would be hesitant to do that even if asked, unfortunate lungs and all—but enough pressure to set Juno whimpering.

“You wanna—” Juno gasps at a particular twist of Peter’s hand, “get a move on?”

“Now why is that, Juno?” Peter chuckles, as deep and rich as ever and enough to melt Juno from the inside out. “Is there somewhere you need to be? My schedule is clear for the evening, but if you’ve other plans—”

“Would you just fuck me already?” Juno growls, throwing out a hand to open the drawer where he keeps the lube. He misjudges the distance and smacks his wrist on the corner of the table. “Ow!”

Peter’s dark chuckle turns into a throaty _“ha!”,_ which he stifles too late. He blinks down at Juno, contrite.

“Are you alright?” he asks. His concern is genuine, at least. Juno rubs his wrist and flexes his fingers a couple of times to test out the ache.

“I’m fine,” he says. “Or I will be, once you help me take my mind off it.” He gives Peter a small smile and reaches back up to kiss him.

A few gentle nudges to rearrange their position and the click of a bottlecap, and Peter pushes a finger inside Juno. 

This is one of Juno’s favorite parts of it all. It wasn’t always, not with everyone; a lot of people he’s been with rush through the whole thing, or see prep work as a necessary inconvenience. Peter Nureyev, though—Peter does most things like he’s sampling fine wine, like he savors it. And with those quick fingers in the mix that can throw together a flawless interplanetary passport or sneak in and out of a pocket in a half second flat without anyone the wiser… well. Juno savors it too.

He’s been muffling quiet cries into Peter’s neck for the last few minutes, shaking like a faulty radiator for almost as long. Juno is not too proud to beg, especially here, especially with this man, so he lets loose a stream of pleas for good measure. Peter runs a soothing hand down his side.

“Feel like you’re ready, Juno?”

“Jesus shitting _fuck_ holy Christ goddamn,” Juno replies.

“Can I take that as a yes?”

“You can take it as whatever the hell you want, Nureyev: yes, hell yes, fuck yes, however you say _‘yes’_ on goddamn Pluto,” Juno’s voice is high and tight. “As long as it gets you in me.”

Peter doesn’t waste another second, thank _god._ He pulls his fingers out and Juno feels empty and trembling. At his quiet urging, he lifts up to his knees and straddles Peter’s hips. One of Peter’s arms, slender but steady, wraps tight around Juno’s waist.

Juno lowers himself down, desperate and eager, onto Peter’s cock. He reaches out for the headboard to keep his balance and grips it tight, hands on either side of Peter’s head where he’s sitting up against it.

He locks eyes with Peter—whose face is flushing delicately, in contrast to the hunger in his open mouth, sharp teeth poking through—and rolls his hips down.

Peter’s eyes go wide and he cries out, a high, clear note of _“Ah”_ half in unison with Juno’s own sounds of pleasure. The rhythm they start is feral; Peter thrusts his hips up harder than Juno can push down, bouncing the whole mattress and sending a thrilling shockwave all up Juno’s spine, again and again.

Juno doesn’t quite spare a thought for his neighbors, but he knows he should. And that’s gotta count for something.

His arms are shaking, muscle giving out from the stress and distraction of Peter’s mouth, running a mile a minute now with whispered praise and promises of what he’s going to do to Juno next time, and the time after that, and right now, perhaps, if he’ll let him.

“Please,” Juno says, not sure what he’s agreeing to besides _everything,_ besides Peter himself until the sun expands and swallows the whole filthy red rock they’re tied to.

Peter lunges forward and the headboard disappears from under Juno’s hands. The room spins, or Juno does, which makes more sense when his back hits the mattress.

Juno curses out loud when Peter reaches up to pin down his wrist—the one he didn’t hit on the side table: all manner of care and concern, even here—and fucks him hard. He moves in a way that’s both fast and deep, which rocks Juno’s whole body down to the core, everything stripped away but the red-hot center of it. 

Juno still has one hand free, so he threads it through Peter’s hair and pulls. Peter takes that, correctly, as a cue to bear down on him rougher, deeper, until Juno’s voice reaches a hoarse crescendo.

He can never keep track of Peter’s hands, but he knows that one is closing around him, pumping his cock and it doesn’t take much of that before he’s strung taut, clenching and shaking and probably shouting Peter’s name. Juno feels slickness spread between them, across his own stomach and between Peter’s fingers. 

Juno is oversensitized, raw, and absolutely out of his mind with bliss as those fingers keep touching him right up until Peter’s hips shudder to a stop and he comes.

Juno catches his breath, which takes a while. In the meantime, Peter pulls out slowly, strokes Juno’s cheek, rubs gently at his quaking thigh.

“Well,” Peter says. “That was quite a ‘welcome home.’”

“You should come home more often,” Juno replies. It’s meant to be a quip, something snappy to keep up the rapport. Instead, it sounds wistful, and Juno hates himself a little bit for that.

Instead of letting Juno’s bullshit get him down, Peter hums thoughtfully.

“Maybe I should.” He rolls to the side and pulls Juno closer. Juno lets himself be pulled, pillows his head on Peter’s chest. He can hear him breathing, hear his heart rate gentling.

“Think we should get cleaned up?” Juno asks. He doesn’t feel like moving just yet.

“Soon,” Peter says. “Should I put together a care package for Rita?”

“What?” Juno’s head still feels spacey, a little empty and light.

“You said she has the flu,” Peter clarifies patiently.

“Oh, right. I made her some soup.” Juno stretches and his back makes a small pop. Peter nuzzles closer. “Haven’t had a chance to run it over yet. Uh—” He hesitates. “Want to go together?”

“Juno,” Peter smiles. It’s not a vulpine grin or a smirk or even particularly intentional, just a smile. “I’d be delighted.”

There is something—really, several things, more things than Juno could quantify if he wanted to—about this, seeing Peter Nureyev bare-faced and messy-haired and smiling. It’s a privilege Juno is absolutely certain he does not deserve, but one Peter seems happy to give him, to let him keep.

“Great,” Juno says. “But let’s stay here a bit.”

“I’d like nothing better.” Peter kisses him, right here. Home.

Juno lies on Peter’s chest, listening to the slow beat of his heart. His own doesn’t quite match, just a hair faster, but they sound good together all the same.

“Oh,” Juno pulls back, remembering suddenly. “What did you get me?” He pokes Peter in the chest. “I want my present.”

Peter laughs.

“I almost thought you’d forgotten. Here.” He reaches over his side of the bed, careful not to dislodge the arm he has around Juno, and pulls out a bright pink gift bag. “I suppose it’s not much of a surprise, seeing as you guessed it earlier.”

Juno reaches into the bag and pulls out a hat.

Not just any hat, but one that manages to take his favorite style and mash it together with the kind of hats maintenance workers on the edge of town wear to protect themselves from radiation. It’s wide in the wrong places and strangely thin in others, and to top it all off, it’s got the same fabric pattern as the one-piece suit from hell Juno pulled Peter out of earlier.

“Great,” Juno says again. He does not say it the same way this time. “I’ll, uh, I’ll find a safe place for it.”

If that safe place ends up being the table next to Juno’s open window on a blustery day, nobody has to be the wiser.

And if it happens to be the top shelf of Juno’s closet, tucked away in a box and taken down on certain days when it’s been a little too long since Peter boarded the shuttle to the next star system, well. The same applies.


End file.
